A journal dedicated to truth, freedom of speech and radical spiritual consciousness. Our mission is the liberation of men and women from oppression, violence and abuse of any kind, interpersonal, political, religious, economic, psychosexual. We believe as Fidel Castro said, "The weapon of today is not guns but consciousness."

“Yeah,” he said in his inaugural address, “we need a mayor that’s radical.”

They had predicted that he would be anti-business and anti-police, that Mr. Baraka, the son of Newark’s most famous black radical, would return a city dogged by a history of riots and white flight to division and disarray.

A
year later, Mr. Baraka is showering attention on black and Latino
neighborhoods, as he promised he would. But he is also winning praise
from largely white leaders of the city’s businesses and institutions
downtown. He struggles with crime — all mayors here do — but he has also
championed both the Black Lives Matter movement and the police, winning praise for trying to ease their shared suspicion.

The radical now looks more like a radical pragmatist.

Newark
is still stubbornly two cities: gleaming new glass towers downtown,
block after block of abandoned plots and relentless poverty in its outer
wards, with five killings within 36 hours this month.
But for all the expectations that Mr. Baraka would divide the city,
those on both sides of the spectrum say that he has so far managed to do
what his predecessors could not: make both Newarks feel as if he is
their mayor.

The mayor at an awards ceremony for the Newark Fire Department.Credit
Bryan Thomas for The New York Times

Development plans are reaching into long-ignored neighborhoods. Projects stalled for years are moving forward, and new industries are taking root: a vertical farm, an incubator space and an investment fund for technology start-ups.

Mr.
Baraka closed a $93 million hole in the city budget without layoffs. In
June, Gov. Chris Christie agreed to start returning the schools to
local control — something the governor had denied Cory A. Booker, Mr. Baraka’s more polished predecessor. The governor had rejected Mr. Baraka’s bid for control a year ago, deeming him “kind of hostile.”

“He’s
like the local boy who grew up and said, ‘I need to fix my city.’ How
do you not get inspired by that? How do you not root for a guy like
that?” said Joseph M. Taylor, the chief executive of Panasonic
Corporation of North America, which was lured to Newark by Mr. Booker.
“I didn’t think anybody could top Cory Booker, but if anybody can, it’s
Mayor Baraka.”

Not
everyone is on board. Some local politicians, even those who support
Mr. Baraka, say the positive reception partly reflects the low
expectations set during a nasty election last spring,
in which outside groups spent at least $5 million trying to defeat him.
They say the talent pool at City Hall is shallow, and that Mr. Baraka
has surrounded himself with friends and family members — in particular,
his brother, Amiri Baraka Jr., who serves as his chief of staff — who
engage in a kind of street politics that have dragged Mr. Baraka into
distracting feuds.

The candidate Mr. Baraka defeated, Shavar Jeffries,
continues to criticize the mayor’s inability to stanch crime,
dismissing Mr. Baraka’s anti-violence rallies as empty gimmicks. And
presuming Mr. Baraka can complete the return of schools to local control, they remain some of the nation’s most troubled and low-performing.

Attendees at Occupy the City, an anti-violence march. The mayor has enlisted the help of residents in trying to curb crime.Credit
Yana Paskova for The New York Times

But
others point to changes large and small. The mayor had the walls
painted and brighter light bulbs installed at City Hall. Residents
welcomed his gestures like offering movie nights in Military Park, which is newly renovated with help from private groups and Prudential, whose sleek new headquarters opened this month across the street.

“These small things are what we need,” said Kourtney Awadalla, 28, an office worker who lives in the North Ward.

She had come with her 7-year-old daughter to an Occupy the City
rally the mayor held in early August, blocking off streets at the
city’s crossroads for thousands of residents who marched against
violence. “We’re used to them blocking off streets because someone got
shot, not someone blocking off streets for a positive thing,” Ms.
Awadalla said.

The mayor has created a Civilian Complaint Review Board to address accusations of mistreatment by the police,
and a municipal identification program. He also rewrote the zoning code
for the first time in 60 years, and businesspeople praised him for
speeding up the bureaucracy at City Hall.

Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr.,
the Essex County executive who leads the Democratic machine that lined
up against Mr. Baraka in the nonpartisan elections last year, stood with
him at a news conference in June and declared that he had made a
mistake not supporting him.

The mayor's father, Amiri
Baraka, on his way to jail in 1968 after he was sentenced for illegally
possessing two revolvers during the 1967 riots in Newark.Credit
Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

“I thought he would be divisive,” Mr. DiVincenzo said in an interview. “That’s where I was wrong.”

“A
boy from Clinton Avenue and 10th Street,” as he describes himself, Mr.
Baraka, 46, grew up in one of the more celebrated households of Newark.
His father was Amiri Baraka, the poet, playwright and black nationalist
who moved back to the city to help galvanize the black nationalist
movement. Maya Angelou read poems to the young Ras Baraka; Nina Simone sang him lullabies.

As principal of Central High School,
he pushed out gangs and raised test scores. And as a City Council
member representing the South Ward — Newark’s largest and poorest — he
styled himself as the anti-Booker, criticizing the mayor for spending
too much time on television and travel and not enough tending to the
needs at home. His campaign refrain: “When I become mayor, we all become
mayor.”

Still,
Mr. Baraka can seem uncomfortable with attention. Introduced warmly at a
recent event to open a new community center in the West Ward, he looked
up briefly to nod at the applause, then resumed staring at an
indeterminate place on the floor.

About
his city, he expresses emotion fiercely and openly. In May, after a
spate of killings, he sent out an anguished email over the public alert
system, describing his difficulty sleeping as he thought about the
violence. He called for residents, especially Newark’s men (“the ladies”
always show up, he said), to join him in “occupying” a different block
each week, trying to push out illegal activities.

The mayor at an anti-violence march this month. He has gained attention for his efforts to unite the city.Credit
Yana Paskova for The New York Times

“Everybody
has a responsibility,” he shouted to the thousands gathered at the
intersection of Market and Broad Streets for Occupy the City, wearing a
T-shirt proclaiming “We Are Newark.”

“The
mayor has a responsibility, yes,” he said. “The police have a
responsibility, yes. But so do our fathers, so do our mothers, so do our
brothers. The question is, are you living up to your responsibility?”

The
stubborn poverty of Newark’s residents has long made the city reliant
on its downtown corporate tenants for its tax base and prompted
complaints that mayors lavish attention on them to the detriment of the
rest of the city. (Mr. Baraka’s father was a leader of this charge.)

Downtown
is largely a 9-to-5 population of whites who commute from the suburbs.
Residents in other parts of the city are more likely to refer to the
riots that convulsed Newark in 1967 as “the rebellion,” an uprising
against white oppression.

In the heart of downtown, the administration has pushed forward Triangle Park,
a 24-acre parcel with a park and retail, residential and office space
that will connect Pennsylvania Station, the restaurants of the Ironbound
section, and the Prudential Center,
an entertainment arena and home of the New Jersey Devils. The city
conceived the project 10 years ago, but much of the land has remained
weedy lots. Construction is expected to begin next year.

“The progress that has been achieved in the last 90 days has been more than what was done in the last five years,” said Hugh Weber, the president of the Prudential Center and the Devils.

The city has also helped move along the construction of One Theater Square,
a 22-story residential tower that was supposed to be built soon after
the Performing Arts Center was finished in 1997. The project, expected
to complete its financing in October, will be the city’s first new
market-rate housing in five decades.

A
free-standing Starbucks — the city’s only one announced its closing in
2008 — will soon open in the new Prudential complex, as will a Nike
store. A Whole Foods is under construction in the old Hahne &
Company department store space nearby, and Rutgers will occupy 57,000 square feet there with university arts programs, gallery space and a community photo studio.

The
Baraka administration passed an ordinance requiring developers who get
tax abatements and companies with city contracts to hire Newark
residents for 51 percent of their jobs.

This
spring, Mr. Baraka designated two of the most blighted areas in the
South and West Wards of the city “model neighborhoods,” flooding them
with police and code enforcement officers to address problems like poor
lighting and abandoned structures that can foster crime.

He
established nine Centers of Hope with social services and activities in
abandoned community centers, and enlisted downtown institutions, such
as the Devils and the Performing Arts Center, to bring programs to the
neighborhoods. Well before Ferguson, Mo., drew attention to
police-community relations, Mr. Baraka had begun leading groups of
police officials and clergy members to walk and talk with residents in
some of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Mr.
Baraka meets often with his police director. But he has also set up
street teams of residents to help defuse tensions that can escalate into
shootings and death. In one recent case, a young man reported that
someone was threatening to kill him because he owed $250. The team took
money from a hardship fund and gave it to the man making the threat, but
told him that if there was further trouble, he would be arrested.

Todd R. Clear,
the provost and a professor of criminal justice at Rutgers
University-Newark, confessed to having worried about the new mayor
coming in. “Now I’m really engaged, I’m all in,” he said, impressed by
the mayor’s “phenomenal” energy in dealing with crime, his willingness
to enlist help and push the police and residents out of their
traditional postures.

“I
am as encouraged about what’s going on in Newark with public safety as
I’ve ever been, and I’ve been here since 1979,” he said.

“He realizes that he can’t do this out of City Hall,” Mr. Clear said. “This is sort of like making everyone mayor.”

The histories of Cuba and the United States are tightly intertwined and have been for at least two centuries. In Race to Revolution,
historian Gerald Horne examines a critical relationship between the two
countries by tracing out the typically overlooked interconnections
among slavery, Jim Crow, and revolution. Slavery was central to the
economic and political trajectories of Cuba and the United States, both
in terms of each nation’s internal political and economic development
and in the interactions between the small Caribbean island and the
Colossus of the North.

Horne draws a direct link between the black
experiences in two very different countries and follows that connection
through changing periods of resistance and revolutionary upheaval. Black
Cubans were crucial to Cuba’s initial independence, and the relative
freedom they achieved helped bring down Jim Crow in the United States,
reinforcing radical politics within the black communities of both
nations. This in turn helped to create the conditions that gave rise to
the Cuban Revolution which, on New Years’ Day in 1959, shook the United
States to its core.

Based on extensive research in Havana, Madrid,
London, and throughout the U.S., Race to Revolution delves deep
into the historical record, bringing to life the experiences of slaves
and slave traders, abolitionists and sailors, politicians and poor
farmers. It illuminates the complex web of interaction and influence
that shaped the lives of many generations as they struggled over
questions of race, property, and political power in both Cuba and the
United States.

In
his pathbreaking book, Gerald Horne reveals how the histories of Cuba
and the United States, from the slave trade to Jim Crow and the Cold
War, have always been closer and more turbulent than the ninety miles
separating them across the Straits of Florida. Indeed, one cannot
possibly understand the journey from bondage to freedom in America
without wrestling with its consequences for the people of African
descent in Cuba. Their story is our story, and thanks to Horne, we can
now study its flow in a single, and profound, narrative.

An
important intellectual event … Hopefully, someone will discover over
there, in the capital of the Empire, these works by Professor Horne. And
may they find time to read them.

—Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, former ambassador of Cuba to the United Nations and president of Cuba’s National Assembly

Gerald Horne is one of our most original historians.

—Ishmael Reed, John D. MacArthur Fellow

Gerald
Horne’s epic history will help many readers understand the special
relationship between slavery, African Americans, and Cuba over the
centuries. Horne continues in the deep tradition of Frederick Douglass,
who described Cuba as ‘the great western slave mart of the world.’ Horne
is in the forefront of historians laboring to revise the entire story
of the Americas until the broken pieces are mended.

—Tom Hayden, author, Inspiring Participatory Democracy

Horne
offers new insights and thoughtful analysis of the comparative and at
time complementary circumstances of slavery and racial animus in Cuba
and the United States, and in the process reveals a new dimension to the
complexities of the Cuba-U.S. problematic. Race to Revolution is a very
much welcome and important contribution to the scholarship on the
workings of trans-national systems.

—Louis A. Pérez, Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Gerald Horne
is John and Rebecca Moores Professor of African-American History at the
University of Houston. He is the author of more than two dozen books,
including The Counter-Revolution of 1776, Negro Comrades of the Crown, Mau Mau in Harlem?, From the Barrel of a Gun, and Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930-1950.

A
new anthology, Talking Back: Voices of
Color (Red Letter Press, 2015),presents an unusually diverse group of writers speaking out on issues
affecting communities of color. Contributors share tales of survival, explore
little-known history, and offer insightful cultural reviews. Nellie Wong, a
widely published Bay Area poet and social justice activist, is the book's editor
and author of the introduction, a striking meditation on the importance of
"talking back" in asserting identity and power on an individual and collective
level.

Like Wong, the
book's contributors are involved in community organizing. Based in a number of
locations, their identities include Asian/Pacific American, Black, indigenous
North American and Aboriginal Australian, Latino, Palestinian, immigrant,
feminist, youth, elder, LGBTQ, students, unionists, former prisoners, and more.
Their aim is to communicate and mobilize. Speaking from and to the grassroots,
their offerings are readable, persuasive, free from academic jargon, and rich
with personal experience.

Black readers
will find themselves represented in a number of articles. Duciana Thomas
recounts her participation in the fight to preserve working-class education.
School teacher Lillian Thompson shows how charter schools perpetuate
inequality.Mark Cook, a political
prisoner for 24 years, describes the slave-labor conditions in U.S. prisons.
Black Panther leader Eddie Conway speaks out in a prison interview. John
Hatchett tells how he, as a faculty advisor, helped female students at Bennett
College plan the historic Greensboro sit-ins. Sarah Scott reviews the novel We Need New Names, dealing with the
experience of African immigrants. Ralph Poynter describes how his wife, attorney
Lynne Stewart, became a political prisoner and calls for the release of all
political prisoners.Nellie Wong
pays tribute to radical Black, gay poet Langston Hughes.

African
American scholar, unionist, and former civil rights organizer James Wright calls
the book "a treasure" by a "rainbow of radical authors." Alice Goff, a Black
immigrant labor leader and community activist, predicts that even readers who
don't share the opinions of the authors may "come away with a different
perspective and possibly be moved to question the status quo."Another reviewer, Arab American artist
and writer Happy Hyder, says the book's "fearless and varied voices" reveal "the
true meaning of political action." Sociologist Dr. Jesse Díaz, Jr. says the book
will lead to increased understanding of the activist of color's "toils for
equality and justice." Karin Aguilar-San Juan, an associate professor and
Filipina American lesbian, describes the writings as resonant with "pain and
rage… light and power and hope."

Talking Back:
Voices of Color can be ordered from www.RedLetterPress.org, Amazon.com,
Powells.com or request from your local book seller.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

I didn't get a chance to meet Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner, but
I was blessed to meet Pan Africa and Mumia Abu Jamal. All praise is due
Allah I met them in my lifetime as the direct spirit of Harriet Tubman and
Nat Turner. Pam and Mumia, I appreciate you for holding high the banner
of Black Liberation in the United Snakes of America.
--Marvin X
30 August 2015, Oakland Cali

She was a sick mother who hated her daughter because she was not a boy. She had three sons but found her daughter disgusting, a little bitch with a pussy like mine. I love my boys but that little bitch gotta go.

So she persecuted her daughter at every turn, locked her in her room, beat her daily and starved her. Mama was a sick puppy who came from the womb of a sick mother who was mentally ill and illiterate. Fuck them books, she told her children. Don't bring nothing home from that damn school.

Them motherfuckers don't know shit. I know everything ya'll need to know. Listen to what I tell you. She told her children they would never be shit, just like their no good daddy, a dope fiend ass motherfucker who loved dope more than he loved her and his children.

Every time I look at that little bitch daughter of mine, I get sick cause she looks just like her daddy.

I'm so happy my boys look like me. They my pride and joy, not that little bitch lookin' like her no good motherfuckin daddy. Left me here with these four kids so he could do his dope. I wish that motherfucker soon have a heart attack and overdose so I can have some peace in my life. Yeah, I lock that little bitch in her room, think I wanna see her. I don't want to look at her ass lookin like her fuckin daddy. Give me a motherfuckin break!

I wish Child Protective Services would come and get these little bastards, well, they can take that little funky ass bitch with her pussy. Yeah, I turned her on to my boyfriends, let them get at that bitch. She ain't good fa nothing, noway. What the hell she gonna be but a ho'? Little slut, yeah, I let my boyfriends get some of that ass, so what? Her pussy ain't gold! If I had my way, I'd sell that little slut. But my boys, I love my boys. They my pride and joy. And most of all, they look like me, not like their no good motherfuckin daddy.

How in the fuck can I deal with four kids in my mental state. I know I'm crazy. Ma mama is crazy. Ma grandma is crazy. Yeah, I come from a long line of crazy motherfuckin women who kicked they men's asses. That's right, we dominated our nigguhs. They didn't fuck wit us. Ma granny would shoot a nigguh before the sun came up. Mama would shot a nigguh fore the sun came down. Yeah, we some bad bitches, from a long line of bad bitches, all the way back to Great Granny C who came off the slave ship kickin ass. Better ax somebody. She told the white slave master she ain't doin a motherfucker thang and he can kiss her black ass, yeah, her unruly black ass.

Slave master didn't fuck with Great Granny C. She ran off the plantation and her master put her ass on a wanted sign:

If murder of police is assassination, what is the killing of unarmed Black men but assassination under the color of law! We don't need police in our communities who kill unarmed young Black men and women.

We just attended August Wilson's play King Hedley II, at the Flight Deck Theatre in Oakland, produced and directed by Dr. Ayodele Nzinga. King Hedley's wife seeks an abortion because she refuses to bring a child in this world only to be murdered by another Black person or by the police.

Even more ironic is the play's director, Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, who has four sons (three of them in the production) and has told this writer how fearful she is whenever her sons leave the house, fearful they may not return home due to Black on Black homicide or police homicide under the color of law.

Imam Jamil Al Amin (H. Rap Brown) told us long ago violence is as American as cherry pie. Violence in America shall not stop until America ends her trillion dollar global military killing machine that needs permanent war to feed the military/corporate bandits, yes, the one per centers, aka, blood suckers of the poor.

Shannon J. Miles is a tragic figure but his tragic flaw is rooted in American white supremacy. White Supremacy is the supreme American Tragedy due to classic hubris, greed, jealousy and envy.

Officer Darren Goforth died a tragic death and with each passing day, we envision only more murder under the color of law and the response of the oppressed people who will find a way to strike back at those who represent and perpetuate oppression, who think they can literally get away with murder with fake grand juries and district attorneys in league with the police.

The police are not the real enemy but the political/economic institutions that allow them to murder under the color of law. Every slave has the human right to resist the slave master and those who help maintain the slave system, from the slave catchers of yesterday to the police of today.

The police should remove themselves from our communities until they understand their role as peace officers, which they may be constitutionally unable to do since they represent a vicious system of wage slavery and mass incarceration of the unemployed, drug addicted and mentally ill.

The police can and must do better or simply remove themselves from our communities.

As the Black Panther Party said long ago, "You are either part of the problem or part of the solution." On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the BPP, we learned we don't have the power to confront the police, we cannot make war with them because they will bring in all the power of the state military and intelligence agencies to crush us into the dustbin of history. The condition of Oakland, California is partly due to the counter-revolution that the US waged against the Black Panther Party in particular and North American Africans in general. How else can one explain the reactionary culture of Oakland that was devastated by the introduction of Crack cocaine and guns, additionally germ and chemical warfare was utilized to break the back of the Black Liberation Movement, to crush any idea of radical and revolutionary change. Oakland is inundated with intelligence agents, agent provocateurs and snitches in abundance. The police mantra is, "Give up three and you go free!"

Nevertheless, we must resist at every turn because persecution is worse than slaughter, says the Qur'an. In the tradition of the American revolution, Liberty or Death!

--Marvin X

29 August 2015

(Reuters)
- Sheriff's deputies on Saturday arrested a 30-year-old man who will be
charged with capital murder in connection with the shooting death of a
deputy at a Houston gas station, a killing the sheriff tied to anger
against police.

Shannon Miles was picked up for
questioning early on Saturday following the Friday night shooting, which
was captured on surveillance video, Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman
told reporters. He noted that Miles is black and has a history of prior
arrests for trespassing and resisting arrest.
Earlier
on Saturday, Hickman had linked the shooting of deputy Darren Goforth,
who was white, to anti-police rhetoric across the country in the wake
of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white officers.

On
announcing the charges against Miles later in the day, Hickman said the
department assumed that Goforth was "a target because he wore a
uniform."

"We have not been able to extract any
details regarding a motive at this point," Hickman added. "As far as we
know, deputy Goforth had no previous contact with the suspect, and it
appears to be clearly unprovoked."

Hickman said a handgun had been recovered and that a ballistics test matched it to bullets recovered from the scene.

Goforth,
a 10-year veteran of the force, was pumping gas into his patrol car
when the gunman approached from behind and shot him in the back, then
shot him more times as he lay on the ground, sheriff's officials said.

The
fatal shooting in Houston comes more than eight months after two New
York police officers were ambushed and shot to death in Brooklyn by a
gunman who had said he wanted to avenge the deaths of black men in
confrontations with police.

New York Police
Commissioner William Bratton said at the time of the shooting, which
followed large-scale protests over deaths of African-Americans at the
hands of officers, that police were unfairly subjected to public anger.

Hickman
was blunt in his defense of law enforcement in the midst of protests
against police by movements such as Black Lives Matter, which has
complained of police violence and mass incarceration of blacks.

"We've heard black lives matter; all lives matter. Well cops' lives matter too," Hickman said.
"Our
system of justice absolutely requires a law enforcement presence to
protect our communities, so at any point where the rhetoric ramps up to
the point where calculated cold-blooded assassination of police officers
happen(s), this rhetoric has gotten out of control," Hickman added.

Some commentators on social media objected to Hickman's statements.

"When
Blacks get legally killed we are constantly told it's not about race.
But the sheriff in the DarrenGoforth case IMMEDIATELY invoked race,"
tweeted African-American author and lecturer Tariq Nasheed.

After
months of debate, the City Council unanimously voted this week to
create a Department of Race and Equity to address systemic racism and
inequality in the City of Oakland.

This
victory for the Department of Race and Equity makes Oakland one of few
cities around the country, along with Portland and Seattle, that have
created departments to ensure equality and fairness for all residents.

Among other issues, the department will need to look at unequal enforcement of city zoning policies, said Brooks.

“It’s
the planning and the zoning decisions that have allowed for auto body
shops to be next door to somebody’s house, that allow for environmental
issues to impact communities of color, that allow for West Oakland to
have (a higher) asthma rate because of the bad conditions,” she said.

“We need a Department of Race and Equity because we have normalized the conversation of race,” Brooks said.

The poor righteous teacher does not teach for money, fame or fortune. His message is truth and truth alone. Marvin X told Jet Magazine, "I don't want the Christian truth, Muslim truth, Communist Truth, I want the whole truth, so help me God!"

No matter how the political correct consider him, i.e., some say he is not a Muslim--although there are those who consider him the father of Muslim American literature (Dr. Mohja Kahf), though there are those who know he is one of the fathers of the Black Arts Movement, precursor of Rap or the Hip Hop movement (See the anthology Black Fire and the Black Arts Movement Reader SOS.

Amiri Baraka said, "Marvin X, aka El Muhajir, is one of the outstanding...African writers and teachers in America. He has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the innovators and foudners of the new revolutionary schools of African writing."--Amiri Baraka

"When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express Black male urban experiences in a lyrical way."--James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer

Many don't know where to place Marvin X, for sure he transcends the American and European literary tradition.

Bob Holman called him, "The USA's Rumi. Then added he was Saddi and Hafiz."

Ishmael Reed said, "He is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland." For sure, Marvin X teachers at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. But his mission is far beyond teaching, he is a mental health counselor for the many suffering trauma and grief."My teaching is thus about literacy, literature, consciousness, partner relations, parent/child relations and more. --Marvin X, August 28, 2015

In my 1968 interview with ancestor James Baldwin, he said, "It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad." Oh, Jimmy, your prophesy has come true today, 2015: the virus of white supremacy (type I and II, Dr. Nathan Hare, Foreword, How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, Dr. M, aka Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 2007) is pervasive in North American Africans and Europeans. As a nation we are totally unable to navigate the perilous mental landscape with an iota of soundless or saneness. We are thus the performer on the tightrope about to fall headlong into the chasm or precipice of our own making. Like the hog returning to slop, we wallow in the madness of the times. And yes, the only light at the end of the tunnel is the train coming at us. And sadly, the engineer is busy text messaging as the oncoming train collides with our train and we are derailed and suffer death along with many injuries, physical and mental. We assumed or presumed the engineer was of sound mind, just as we assume our political leaders are of sound mind yet they are not, for they are enslaved to lobbyists of every stripe, pushing every agenda imaginable to advance themselves despite the fact they vowed to promote the consent of the governed upon election or reelection. Their duplicity feeds our madness and derails our mental equilibrium, causing us to descend even deeper into the chasm, confounded us with a plethora of lies and half truths.

We have been programmed by the monkey mind media to profess loyalty to the world of make believe the media magicians present to us. Thus, we are hoodwinked into believing their fake world. Dr. Nathan Hare says we must understand the Fictive Theory, i.e., everything the white man says is fiction until proven to be fact. This is a most difficult proposition when we have become addiction to white supremacy, i.e., the white man's ice is colder than the Black man's. There are those who will not use their credit cards with Black web sites but have no fear with submitting their credit cards to Amazon.com. I've had customers who declined to use my Square swipe, they rather go to the ATM machine and pay the fee because they don't trust my Square swipe.

Fear and lack of truth is discussed in Step I of my manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy. Since this is a Pan African manual of recovery, an African recently said, "Marvin X, we need a book entitled The Mis-education of the African. Talk about those Oxford Africans who are brainwashed worse than American Negroes. Marvin X, I tell you the truth, I rather be a Negro than an African. I would be totally shocked by his statement except an African woman told me the same thing recently. With his and her statements, I am confounded yet humbled by the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who told us we were the light of the world, as per Africans and Arabs, especially Arab Muslims. He preached to us to be our aboriginal selves and we would be leaders of the new world now coming into reality.

Master Sun Ra taught us we would not go forward or backward until we did the right thing, i.e., accepted our role in the world, along with our responsibility as the leaders as we enter the new era or the new cycle of history or mystery (Sun Ra) , yes, as we begin another 25, 000 year cycle of time.

So let us be clear on how we can navigate the perilous mental landscape in the now of our lives. Know thyself said the Africans, followed by the Greek students of the Africans (see Stolen Legacy, George M. James). Knowledge of Self is the first knowledge on the road to us regaining our mental equilibrium.

We cell phones, we can now Google African Knowledge of Self! We can Google any knowledge from anywhere in the world. This makes the Bible saying, "The people were destroyed for lack of knowledge," even more relevant because there is no excuse for ignorance except the desire to remain ignorant. And there are those who desire to remain ignorant. Some of those brothers who stop by my Academy of da Corner, will say proudly, "Oh, Bro, I don't read books, my woman reads." Imagine the depths of this statement, a prescription for some horror story in male/female relations "further on up the road," as that old Blues song tells us. Can't remember if this is a Bobby Bland or BB King song.

I am horrified when brothers come to my Academy and ask for work. As I watch them, I can see their primary objective is my female assistant. I observe that his pants are hanging off his behind, so I know he can't work with me if he has a problem pulling up his pants. Would anyone hire him with his pants sagging showing his drawers. If the white man won't hire him, I don't blame the white man. I know if I came in my Father's house with my pants sagging, I would get a serious beat down. Alas, we know many if not most of these brothers have no knowledge of their fathers, and this fact contributes to their difficulty is navigating their perilous mental landscape.

Manhood training is thus a necessity is regaining our mental equilibrium, and the same for women. What are the fundamentals of manhood and womanhood and who is qualified to teach us this essential lesson of life? The most recent lessons came from the Nation of Islam's FOI and MGT training classes.

The Nation of Islam, no matter the negatives, it attempted to instruct us in manhood and womahood training rites and rituals. In truth, we need to bow down and kiss the ground for the teachings of the Nation of Islam that gave us Black Studies 101 and manhood/womanhood training as well. Socalled academic Black Studies never gave us basic manhood and womanhood training. If one doesn't know the purpose and meaning of manhood and womanhood, all other knowledge is to no avail. When I taught Black Studies at Fresno State University, 1969, Message to the Black Man was my text and as per my journalism class Muhammad Speaks was my text. Yes, Gov. Ronald Reagan removed me from campus by any means necessary. He did the same to Angela Davis at UCLA the same year. And as a Communist, what do you think her texts were? Ask her!

I conclude with the question, How do we navigate the perilous mental landscape before us at this hour?

Firstly, we must be fearless. We must overcome our fears in order to navigate successfully.

Fresno Unified looks to restore sex education

June 17, 2015

The school board examined a plan Wednesday to add a comprehensive sex education curriculumThe district’s Sociology for Living class ended in 2011Fresno County has some of the highest teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates

Listen up Fresno high schoolers: sex education could soon be coming to a classroom near you.
Fresno
Unified officials are talking about restoring sex education across the
city’s high schools under a plan that would add lessons about sexually
transmitted infections, contraception and healthy relationships.

At
the district’s school board meeting Wednesday, trustees took up a
proposal that would bring back all those topics by January. They didn’t
take a vote and the issue will likely get more discussion this summer or
fall.

The measure comes after local organizations like teen
health group Fresno Barrios Unidos and the ACLU of Northern California
urged district administrators to restore the lessons. It’s also on the
heels of legislation that’s passed the state Assembly and is winding
through the state Senate that would make comprehensive sex education
mandatory in middle and high schools.

If the bill becomes law, it would mark a huge shift in what’s required of California public schools.
Fresno
students already get the absolute basics. State law currently requires
middle and high schools to provide education about how to prevent
HIV/AIDS.

But schools are not mandated to offer “comprehensive”
sex education, or age-appropriate, unbiased, medically accurate
information. To be comprehensive, students must learn about abstinence,
sexually transmitted infections and contraception.

Fresno
County has the state’s fourth-highest rate of teens with chlamydia and
gonorrhea infections, a figure that’s consistently 20%-25% higher than
state averages.

Fresno Unified’s plan would use a curriculum called Positive Prevention Plus to teach those topics.
Local
health advocates who attended Wednesday’s meeting praised the
curriculum and said they were encouraged by the district’s effort.

Socorro
Santillan, executive director of Fresno Barrios Unidos, urged trustees
to partner with organizations like hers to help teach students. The
group already has programs for parents and has taught workshops at some
high schools.

Others who attended, like UCSF Fresno resident Dr. Janae Barker, said it’s a matter of public health.
Barker
said she’s constantly witnessing teens who repeat their mistakes: they
never learn about safe sex and prevention and wind up contracting
syphilis or getting pregnant. Among a group of at-risk teen girls she’s
worked with at Fresno High, she said, “it was amazing the things they
didn’t know. There are kids in that class, two of which are currently
pregnant, one who is on her second pregnancy.”

Fresno high schools
used to have a class called Sociology for Living, a health and life
skills class that was axed for budget and other reasons in 2011. It was
at one time a graduation requirement and taught students about some
sexual health topics and about marriage and family issues.
In
2011, school board members found a compromise to cut the class, but
retain the subjects students were taught. That may have happened for a
while, but school officials said this spring that comprehensive sex
education is no longer offered.

It
was amazing the things they didn’t know. There are kids in that class,
two of which are currently pregnant, one who is on her second pregnancy.

UCSF Fresno resident Dr. Janae Barker, who is working with a group of Fresno High at-risk teen girls

Public
health officials and community health organizers have been scratching
their heads asking why sex education wasn’t restored earlier. Fresno
County still has the fourth-highest rate of teens with chlamydia and
gonorrhea infections, a figure that’s consistently 20%-25% higher than
state averages. For people of all ages, Fresno County ranks second for
both chlamydia and gonorrhea.

Among school districts in Fresno
County, students within Fresno Unified have the highest rates of both
infections, Fresno Department of Public Health statistics show. Clovis
and Central Unified are next on the list.

At the meeting, trustee
Carol Mills said she hopes the district will move sooner than later to
bring sex education back into both the middle and high schools. She’s
talked to middle school nurses who have told her about eighth-grade
girls becoming pregnant, a fact Mills said is almost “incomprehensible,
although I know it exists.”

Many of the trustees said schools
can’t alone be expected to turnaround such dire statistics. But overall,
most were supportive of the plan.

Trustee Brooke Ashjian, who
attended the meeting via conference call, questioned whether students
would learn about lesbian, gay, bisexual and other sexual orientation
and gender issues. He also questioned whether traditional relationships
and marriage values would be taught.
Those questions will likely be hashed out in future board discussions.

STDs In California On The Rise (PHOTOS)

Generally, you expect to see preventable diseases decline in
advanced societies. Not so with some sexually transmitted diseases
(STDs) in California.

Syphilis cases in the Golden State jumped by 18 percent from 2010 to 2011,
according to new data released by the California Department of Public
Health (CDPH). There was also a 5 percent increase in chlamydia cases
and a 1.5 percent increase in gonorrhea cases.

Across the board,
the STD rates among African Americans continue to be strikingly high,
especially in comparison to the other racial groups.

In regards to why African American women contract STDs at far higher
rates than women of other races, Robert Fullilove, a clinical
sociomedical professor at Columbia University Health and chairman of the
HIV/AIDS committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
said on "Fresh Air" that it is partly because fewer African American men are available.:

Because
of incarceration, homicide and AIDS, Fullilove said, "A large number of
marriageable men were taken out of the community. When you have this
kind of population imbalance, many of the rules that govern mating
behavior in the community are simply going to go out the window." "The
competition for a man becomes so extreme ... all of the prevention
measures [like condom usage] that we've been trying to create over the
last 30 years go out the window."

But Heidi Bauer, chief of the
health department's STD control branch, told The Huffington Post that
Fullilove's theory is hard to prove, and that the department has not
found a smoking gun explaining any of the disease increases. It may be
that individuals have more partners and use fewer condoms or that,
especially given cuts to local health departments and clinics, there is
less access to care, she said.
Regarding education, Bauer said
that California law mandates HIV education but that schools have a lot
of autonomy over what other curriculum, if any, they provide -- as long
as it's accurate.

The health department is concerned with the
increase in state rates because these STDs can lead to infertility,
passing a disease on to a newborn and increasing the risk of HIV, Bauer
told HuffPost.
Across all races, chlamydia affected the highest number of people in California, with about 164,000 cases reported in 2011.

Across
the board, the chlamydia rates were about twice as high for women than
for men. This is largely because the disease is often asymptomatic, but
women are screened annually up to age 25 and therefore diagnosed more
often, Bauer explained. The rates were highest for men and women between
20 and 24 years old, with the exception of African American women, with
whom the highest rate is women between 15 and 19 years old. Here is the racial breakdown:

Chlamydia rates (per 100,000 population):

African American - 1,030.3

Latino - 332.6

Native American - 216.4

White - 141.9

Asian/Pacific Islander - 118

There
were 27,000 gonorrhea cases in California in 2011. Gonorrhea rates were
higher -- sometimes twice as high -- for men than for women (except for
Native Americans) because of men having sex with men and because women
with gonorrhea often don’t have symptoms. The highest gonorrhea rates
were in San Francisco (276.5), followed by Fresno (127.2) and Sacramento
(126.7). Here is the racial breakdown:

Gonorrhea rates (per 100,000 population):

African American - 303.8

Latino - 40.7

Native American - 37.7

White - 33.3

Asian/Pacific Islander - 17.2

There
were about 2,500 syphilis cases, and men had vastly higher rates as it
largely affects men who have sex with men. The highest syphilis rate was
in San Francisco (46.2), followed by Berkeley (14.8). It is the only
STD out of the three discussed where whites had the second-highest rate:

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Official Statement of Dr. Malik Zulu Shabazz on the Dhoruba Bin Wahad controversy

On August 8, 2015 I was speaking in Atlanta as an invited guest at the New Black Panther Summit on Police Terrorism and explaining my experiences from the streets and combatting the police brutality in Ferguson, Baltimore, South Carolina as well as inside the courtroom since last year. I was speaking on my 27 years on the front lines.

DBW and KJ led a group of at least 8 armed men to the stage to take the stage and to take me physically off the stage and shutdown the panther summit.

DBW AND KJ detailed their plan to stop the NBPP summit and MZS in their pre summit press release "Operation Shutdown" and other communication sources where DBW and KJ shockingly believed they had exclusive control of the police brutality issue and NO OTHER GROUP would be allowed to have a meeting on that subject unless they had the approval of DBW and KJ. A form of Black facism in the Black community. KJ was convicted of a similar offense in the Black community in 2005 by the POCC under the leadership of Fred Hampton Jr.

DBW has a 45 year history of armed intimidation against political figures in the Black community he does not agree with. DBW started his disputes by bucking the Black Panther Party founder, Honorable Huey P. Newton in 1971 and opposing his leadership. The legendary Sam Napier, BPP newspaper editor in New York, was a tortured, kidnapped and a murdered casualty to this tragic conflict. DBW has admitted in books and interviews to "feeling like a Black cop" while executing actions against Black drug dealers and other figures he does not like. True indeed. DBW has suffered in prison and committed heroic acts and been targeted by cointel-pro. All that is true. But none of that is a pardon or pass for his extensive acts and attempts of aggression and intimidation in the Black community.

I have sat with DBW many times. At one point he was like a big brother to me. But the political opposition to the very existence of the NBPP by some BPP turned him harshly toward me and now towards the NBPP. DBW's "OPERATION SHUTDOWN" was a wild and desperate and irresponsible and reckless attempt to physically harm me and physically take over the New Black Panther annual Summit with his armed posse.

Therefore, knowing DBW history and his current intentions, I suspected an AUDUBON BALLROOM type of situation was developing. Minister Malcolm X was assassinated in the Audubon Ballroom.

I spied the takeover plan and plot as I was speaking and asked DBW to wait and I would deal with his issues. As I have sat with him many times to discuss issues and as I have a long track record of patiently answering any questions asked of me at at a public event.

In the middle of my keynote speech, with his squadron of armed men at the stage, DBW, in response to my simple request for him to wait until I completed my speech and I would answer his question; DBW screamed at the top of his voice , "NO NIGGER WE GONNA DEAL WITH THIS SHIT NOW NIGGER!" and DBW moved to take over.

Instinctively and self defensively I said, without yelling, "get his ass out of here". I was simply asking for him and his group of armed sizable men, to be escorted from the room. This was a general request made to hotel security or anyone who would help. I do not have any supervisory authority or control over the New Black Panther Party. The New Black Panther is under the capable leadership of Minister Hashim Nzinga, my and Dr. Khallid Muhammd's former chief of Staff. I am the National President of Black Lawyers for Justice.

After my request to have DBW and KJ and their squad of. men removed from the stage, I was solely focused on scanning the room for the possible gunman or whoever was sent to physically attack me. I do not know what happened in specific to DBW amongst the crowd.

Reports from eye witnesses says that DBW threw a punch at his escort, which then caused a reaction and a fight between NBPP AND DBW squad members and a melee ensued.

Other eyewitnesses say DBW had a knife or dropped a knife and that's what set everything off. An NBPP Investigation is pending.

So brothers and sisters this is what really happened. A physical plan to attack my person and to shutdown the NBPP was hatched by DBW and KJ. It went terribly wrong for DBW and KJ. These were risky and grossly reckless, aggressive actions by DBW and KJ. Their actions put not only my life at risk but also Nation of Islam and several hundred Black community children and women at risk.

DBW strategy was risky and dangerous and filled with emotion and hatred for his own brothers. He must take responsibility for his own reckless actions. I hate what happened, but bear no responsibility. Responsibility lies squarely with DBW as the aggressor and initiator and the misleader of his men .
DBW acted in the manner of a gangster a thug and a fascist. And his actions are in line with the aims and objectives of the counterintelligence program. His actions fit the COINTELPRO Pattern to disrupt and cause fighting amongst Black groups.

DBW actions could have set off a wider war. DBW attacked me and I am a member of the family of the Nation of Islam and I am a close son of Minister Louis Farrakhan and I am the real son of Dr Khallid Muhammad. DBW duped members of the 5 per centers into his plan and we have nothing but love for the Nation of Gods and Earths. Also we have never had any physical incidents with BPP members despite some issues between us.

So therefore DBW actions were reckless and could set off adverse actions all across several Black organizations. So yes, I ask the question, "who is DBW working for? And is his work In the BLA haunting him or hanging over his head?" Why is DBW so obsessed with me and the NBPP? Why does DBW track my cities and my speeches and plot his plans and operations with an intense hatred and focus on me ? Why me? Why is the real enemy all over my back and uncle toms nationwide DBW at the same time. Why? I ask myself why?

DBW did not conduct himself as an elder. He acted as a thug and gangster and he set off a tragic chain of events with his aggressive and provocative actions. DBW did not act as a wise elder. He acted like a young gangster moving against his rivals in 1971.

In conclusion, check my track record. I am not a thug nor am I a gangster. I have no record of bringing harm to Black people. I am a patient man and a gentle man but I am not a weak man and I am not a punk. I will secure my safety and I will defend my self. I have a divine duty to safeguard my life because my life is not my own my life belongs to God and the Black Nation and I am needed on duty to help our people. I will NOT submit to anyone's assassination attempt.

If you doubt any word I say contact eye witnesses who were at the event. Contact Mukasa Ricks. Mukassa Ricks is the founder of Black Power and a right hand to Kwame Ture. Mukassa is an original Panther from Lowndes county. Elder Mukassa saw it all and has officially ruled against DBW and his actions as being at fault for this tragedy.

In the 60s some Panthers did the same thing to Stokley Carmichael. They accused Kwame Ture and his men of being racist and "too Black " and reactionary. Even though Kwame and his men organized the Panther Party for them nationwide. They verbally and in writing, attacked Kwame Ture, called him an agent, and they disrupted his meetings. Sadly some BPP kept harassing and attacking US and Dr Maulana Karenga, saying they were "reactionary cultural nationalists" and making attempts to forcibly shut Black Nationalists down.
History is repeating itself.

About Me

Truth will not make you rich, but it will make you free.--Francis Bacon

Marvin has been ignored and silenced,like Malcolm would be ignored and silenced if he had lived on into the Now. He's one of the most extraordinary, exciting black intellectuals living today --Rudolph Lewis, Chickenbones.